1 move that is ‘non-negotiable’ in placement, according to the short game specialist

Players, says Parker McLaughlin, can have different controls.

They may have different placement attitudes.

But everyone should have this in common, he believes. He calls it a “non-negotiable.”

Setting their eyes.

McLaughlin, Top 100 GOLF Instructors to Watchwas speaking in a video recently posted on his Instagram page – which you can watch in full here or immediately below – and setup is obviously just as important in setting your stroke, speed or line. If you start poorly, you’re likely to end poorly, and McLaughlin hopes the players’ hindsight is 20/20, so to speak.

It should start, he said, “on the ball or just inside the ball at address.”

“Across the board on the PGA Tour, on the LPGA Tour, here are all the best players in the world,” McLaughlin said in the video. “They don’t have — sometimes putting their eyes off the ball here or sometimes too much on the ball. It’s always just inside or right on the ball.”

In the video, McLaughlin also offered a way to test a player’s eye placement.

Take your setup, grab a ball, hold it close to your eyes and throw it, then check to see where it lands.

“This is a great reaction,” he said.

Let’s continue the conversation with the eyes. Last year, GOLF.com wrote an article titled “The Mysterious Phenomenon of Eye Dominance (And How It’s Messing With Your Swing!)” and you can read that story by clicking here or scrolling down.

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The basics may be mundane, but when you nail them, it can make golf that much easier. There are countless things that can go wrong in the golf swing, so it’s vital to take care of variables that are easy to control.

Aim and alignment are two vital parts of the swing that are so simple they are easy to ignore. But when they’re removed just a touch, it can have a huge impact on your swing.

The alignment seems like it would be an easy thing to fix when it goes wrong. You just need to target yourself better, right? yes and no. Making easy adjustments is the way to achieve this baseline, but there is a little-known element to the stretch that very few golfers know about.

How eye dominance affects alignment

Everyone has a dominant hand, but did you know we all also have a dominant eye? Not only that, but the eye has a huge impact on your ability to position yourself when standing on the ball.

When setting up for the ball, most players will try to look at the target with their dominant eye. But when your dominant eye is on the same side as your dominant hand, it can cause some alignment problems.

In the video above, the coach from the Titleist Performance Institute explains that when you’re right-handed and also right-eyed, you’ll often turn your body toward the target when looking at the target to aim. This is because your nose is between your dominant eye and the target, so you have to turn your head to see it.

“They have to turn their body to see the lines,” the coach says. “And it aligns it weirdly and we see all kinds of alignment issues.”

This phenomenon gives a huge advantage to players who are cross-dominant, meaning their dominant eye is opposite their dominant hand. When this is the case, they don’t have to turn their body to look at the target and thus find it easier to line up at address.

“The way you can view the target through your peripheral vision can help,” he says.

If you’re a player who struggles with alignment, it might be worth checking to see which eye is your dominant eye. If you are dominant on the same side, there is a good chance that this will affect your ability to stretch.

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